After giving this plastic vs. metal talk some thinking, I can see where metal would be preferable.
Because of the bulky proprietary electronics, there's really no room to add weight if a plastic boiler were to be used. Here's the innards that make the Y3 go, liberated from Carl Tuveson's website:
If a plastic boiler were used, there's really no place to place an extra weight.
Now, our friends in HO have it easy. Even with the smaller physical size of HO locomotives, there's room to have weight added to the frames. Here's a DCC/sound decoder that can handle everything but smoke:
A diesel Tsunami decoder is the same size, and here's MTH's diesel's electronics:
Again, a lot of space is sucked up for proprietary electronics.
Even without sound, non-proprietary DCC decoders take up little space. Decoder, decoder, where's the decoder:
Oh, there it is, snug as a bug in a rug between the motor and front truck. This is a JST Gold decoder. While marketed as an HO decoder, I've used these in AM RS3's and SHS F3's with no problems.
So, in Flyerworld, I would have to (reluctantly) side with metal for steam locomotives.
Rusty
